Original title: We need to get off the gaslighting, victim-blaming hamster wheel of bullshit (GVBHWBS)
A few weeks ago, I was listening to a panel of funders give advice for nonprofits on the best way to approach their foundation, since funding has been harder to obtain. At another workshop at the same conference, a presenter gave tips on how to personalize communications with donors by tailoring impact stories to boost engagement, possibly by using AI. Meanwhile last week, a colleague called me to vent about her board getting on her case because her organization didn’t meet their various goals for the fiscal year.
Everyone is stressed out. It seems the whole sector is overwhelmed. I mean, our field has never been easy, but I’ve never seen it like this, a time where multiple crises—funding cuts; fascist administration; a normalization of and exponential rise in hate and bigotry; open and gleeful vitriol against nonprofits and DEI; and so on—converge all at once and with such force.
Everyone is trying to find the solutions for their orgs and their work to stay afloat.
The problem is that our “solutions” continue to be grounded in the philosophy that it’s individuals’ and organizations’ lack of skill, dedication, or whatever that is to blame for their failures, when really, the problem is that we are forced to work with and in terrible, ineffective systems that actively prevent us from succeeding. I can’t say it better than my colleague below, who wishes to remain anonymous:
“I’d love to see a conversation where nonprofit leaders get to openly discuss the systemic forces reshaping our sector while also acknowledging how often we’re gaslit into believing the problem is our storytelling, our data, or our fundraising strategy.
“For decades we’ve been told to tell better stories. Meanwhile, we’re expected to operate organizations with chronically inadequate operating support while navigating federal policy shifts, changing compliance expectations, political sorting of philanthropy, institutional risk aversion, inflation, declining household discretionary income, shrinking donor participation, and algorithm-driven communication channels that increasingly require paid reach.
“And that doesn’t even begin to touch on how board members absorb this sector messaging and then unintentionally weaponize it against staff.”
The conflation of systemic challenges with individual/organizational performance—especially by funders, donors, board members, and others with disproportionate power and resources—fuels burn out, drives people out of the sector, and often worsens the societal problems we’re trying to solve because we’re not getting to the right solutions or we’re using horrifying “solutions” like AI.
